The Thirteenth Sign
by Lola Ravenhill
Summary: The colonists have their story, that thirteen tribes left from Kobol: twelve went to the colonies and one went to Earth. The Earthlings have a different story.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is my first real BSG fanfic, so I hope you guys enjoy it. I was experimenting with a theory and ended up writing a story, and so in the first part/prologue no recognizable characters will be there. I hope you'll stick around though, Apollo and Starbuck will be there in the second and third parts. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading!

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The Thirteenth Sign

By Lola Ravenhill

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The amber liquid caught the florescent light and filtered it, splitting it into gleaming bits that fell over the metal desk. Suzanne Ludwig lifted the small glass to her lips and sipped the vanilla and citrus flavored drink. The door opened behind her, and she held the glass up to the light.

"'Cuarenta y tres'," she said, staring through the glass. "Arguably one of the oldest liquors in existence. Legend has it the recipe originated with the ancient Phoenicians."

"That's rather fitting," Adrian Somerled said, coming around to sit on the edge of the desk. He was a tall, well built Brit with a passion for archeology, leading a few colleagues to wonder if he could have been Indiana Jones in a past life. Adrian just rolled his eyes and continued his digging, leaving a snickering Suzanne in his wake. "They're almost all ready out there."

"Great. They get an up close and intimate look at me making a fool of myself," Suzanne sighed, taking another drink. "They'll yank our budget and before you know it I'll be stuck giving tours at some museum in East Bumfuck, Ohio, and you'll probably be shuttled off to the basement of Magdalen College, never to be seen again amidst the piles and piles of paperwork."

Adrian grinned, raking a hand through his fair hair. "I doubt that'll happen. We're in the remnants of ancient bloody _Atlantis_! Neither Oxford nor Harvard will want to let this one slip through their fingers. We're sitting on one of the biggest discoveries in human history, and they're not going to let go of the person who's led the Harvard division of the entire project so far."

"Yeah, they're too afraid that I'll expose this work to the world before it's ready for it," she smirked. With another exhalation of breath she tossed back the rest of the drink. "Well, from your mouth to God's ears, Ade, that I don't get canned when I tell them their precious Atlanteans most likely took a cue from E.T. and made for the stars."

"Should we get them drunk first?" Adrian asked, hauling Suzanne up from her seat and brushing a piece of black hair out of her eyes.

"Couldn't hurt." Suzanne picked up her folder, crossed herself, and then kissed the small gold cross around her neck that she had received for her confirmation. "Let's do this thing."

* * *

A year and a half earlier, just like a scene out of a wonderfully irrational book, a little bit of land had risen up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Shortly after the first geologists had landed there, they had discovered with unnatural haste that the island may have once been a part of the famed and legendary Atlantis. The highly secret bidding war began, with Harvard and Oxford universities and their respective governments winning the rights to lead the teams exploring the ruins that were on the island.

Suzanne and Adrian had been there since the beginning, stuck on the tin can of a boat that had been home for a year and a half. Adrian had been the one to discover the carvings, the literal writing on the wall that eventually gave an idea to where the Atlanteans had gone. They still didn't know the reason the ancient people had left, but after the translators had made some progress with the writings they found out that that wasn't the most important thing.

* * *

Suzanne smoothed her hair back into a bun and adjusted her nicest pair of khaki pants. She was trying to make a good appearance, but it was kind of hard when you hadn't seen modern civilization for a good few months. Oh, what she wouldn't give for a Gap at this point. She spotted Adrian, standing in the back of the room, and gave him a weak smile. Adrian smiled back, nodded, and winked.

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," she muttered to herself as she walked up to the podium. Suzanne smiled at the audience, seeing the stern faces of worldwide academia gazing back at her. She resisted the urge to start chewing on the inside of her cheek, then shuffled her papers and began to read from them.

"Good afternoon everyone; we're all very glad that you made the long trip out here to come to our little conference. For convenience's sake, please hold all questions until the end of the presentation. There will be plenty of time afterwards to deal with them. As you all know, we have been investigating and excavating what is believed to be a small part of what was once the continent of Atlantis. The amount of discoveries that we've made in the past year have been truly astounding, things that will change the traditionally held views of human history.

"The reason that you have assembled here today is because of a sample of writing discovered on the inner walls of a temple we believe was at one point in time dedicated to the sun. It…it is…we ha—"

Suzanne swallowed roughly and tugged at the collar of her blouse. She despised public speaking, to the point that she had almost not gotten her doctorate because of the stage fright that took over for her oral exam. 'Oh, fuck it,' she mouthed, and put the prepared speech aside.

"Okay, here's the big thing, why we've spent all of this money getting all of you out here." In the back of the room Adrian bit back a moan and covered his eyes. He was afraid that this would happen. Now all that had to make an appearance was Suzanne's Brooklyn accent and they were truly done for. "In an antechamber of what we've taken to calling the Zodiac Temple, we found these carvings." She took up the remote to the projector and clicked it on. "Ade, hit the lights please?" He quickly obliged and soon Suzanne had a red laser pointer flickering on the projector screen.

"These carvings bear a strong resemblance to ancient Persian cuneiform script. The first examples that we have of this specific script in the Middle East have been dated to about some time in the 6th century BCE. However, as you have already seen in some of our preliminary reports, carbon dating tests on the ash in the pottery fragments found in this area have shown that this temple was used around the time of 3000 BCE. We could then postulate from this that the Atlanteans, when they abandoned the island, took this method of writing with them and introduced it to people on the Eurasian continent."

A murmur flowed around the room, swelling like a wave and making Suzanne tap her fingers nervously against the podium. If they thought this was unorthodox, wait until they heard what the team had possibly translated the cuneiforms into.

A German accented voice called out from somewhere near the back. "Do you have any proof of that sort of migration?"

"No, as I said before, it's just a theory at this point. Now, if I may move along. Our team of linguists has made an attempt to translate the cuneiforms. They used a key based on the 6th century BCE carvings, with some old Sanskrit tossed as well. And what we came up with is, well…pretty damn surprising." She ignored the groan she just knew came from Adrian. The next slide clicked onto the screen, where a couple of lines were highlighted.

"These are probably the most intriguing bits. It basically translates to 'The time to leave is soon. We take our ships and fly for the heavens. A new life and home awaits us in the firmament.' Now, in light other examples of religious and prophetic literature, this could just be a metaphorical statement, however..." she took a deep breath, "we do know that from other evidence found on site that the Atlanteans most likely had the capabilities of space travel."

This time, it wasn't as much a murmur as an explosion that went through the room. Suzanne was prepared for this. She knew that she held a bombshell in her hands, and that one word could easily set the explosion alight. _Let the truth be known, though the heavens may fall_ was the guiding statement in her mind, and her gut feeling was obligating her to not keep this light hidden.

A vaguely familiar face stood up; she suspected he had been her boss at a few points in her career. "So what you're basically saying is that these writings are definitive proof that the ancient Atlanteans, when their continent was destroyed, took off for outer space?" The clamor rose again, and Suzanne raised her voice to be heard over it.

"Nothing is definitive at this point," she said. "This is all speculation, but the evidence we have is leading us in that direction, as incredible as it is."

"Incredible might be understating it," the man fired back. "We humans, as a culture, haven't been able to physically make it past the moon yet, and you're saying that these people a good 4000 years ago were not only able to go into space, but to also leave the planet permanently and look for a new home out there."

Suzanne clicked to another slide. "Well, there's also text that we found that has them headed for what is most likely Delphi in Greece. A few geographic landmarks in that area appear to correspond to some things described in these sets of cuneiforms," she said, her voice like sharp spikes. Her patience was fast wearing thin. She knew that the backers of the project wouldn't take the team's statements as well as some of the others in the past, but they didn't have to be so damned snide about it. She grinned widely, showing all of her teeth and making Adrian begin to sidle his way up to the front of the room as fast as possible. "But yes, I'm saying that a portion of the Atlanteans, when things got bad, used their get off of Earth free card and left."

The snickers coming out of the audience were now obvious, and it was pretty clear they weren't laughing _with_ her. From somewhere another voice called out "You're a loony!" Suzanne growled under her breath. "Why thank you, Mr. Chap—"she got out before Adrian yanked the microphone away from her mouth.

"All questions and comments should be limited to dealing with the subject matter at hand. If anyone makes any more disparaging comments towards the work or any of the members of the team they will be ejected and summarily sent home," he said in his poshest English accent. That settled them down. As implausible and impossible as they found the statements about Atlantis (which was a bit of an oxymoron in itself when dealing with ancient bloody Atlantis) they wanted to stick around to see what happened. It was almost like a train wreck in that sense, especially if Dr. Suzanne Ludwig was bound to do any more public speaking.

She covered the microphone with her hand. "Would you mind taking over for me?" Suzanne murmured to Adrian. "I've got to get some fresh air before I end up driving a knife through my heart or someone else's."

"Go ahead," he whispered back. "You've already got the important stuff out of the way, and you've certainly gave them a lot to think about. I'm just doing to do a word by word break down of the cuneiforms, and then we'll be done."

Suzanne nodded, looking deep into Adrian's hazel eyes for just a moment. As she moved away from the podium she heard him launch into his part of the speech. "Our translation of the lines that have caused us to make this speculation hinges on this word here—_'Kobol'_, which in Old Persian means 'heaven'…

* * *

Later that night, when all of the academics were safe back in their quarters on the ship and the sun had set behind the sea, Adrian found Suzanne sitting on one of the highest hills of the island. As he approached from behind, he could see the bottle of Cuarenta y tres once again in her hand and a thread of smoke curling up from the other one.

"What are you having?" he asked, sitting down next to her.

"Cloves," she sighed, exhaling smoke. "McKinney smuggled them in for me, God bless that wonderful woman. So how did the rest of that fiasco go in there?"

Adrian shifted, dislodging the pebble that was irritating his leg. "Well…they'd really like to see more proof before they consider our ideas even remotely plausible."

"I think it's remotely plausible that one or more of them might have a lead pipe stuck up their asses."

"That may be true, but they are in charge of our continued study of this place, so we have to try and be nice to them."

"Were they at least intrigued enough to let us continue digging more into this place?" Suzanne asked.

He glanced sideways at her. "They're convinced that this is Atlantis. They're not going to give up this plot of land for anything."

Suzanne nodded and took another drag. "True. I just wish they'd be a little more open minded when it comes to the things that we've been discovering here lately." She gazed out over the darkened sea, the salt-scented breeze tugging her hair into whorls and knots.

"People are scared of what they don't understand." Adrian reached over and helped himself to a clove and the bottle, taking a draught and lighting up with efficient movements. "Although you do have to admit we did start with the biggest thing with them. We could have worked our way up to the space travel theories."

Suzanne shrugged. "I guess I thought that was the most important part in the grand scheme of things these days." She sighed and flopped back onto the scrubby grass, letting the smoke drift lazily out of her mouth. "Look," she pointed out at the clear sky. "You can see some of the zodiac constellations. There's Sagittarius, and there's Capricorn, and I think that's Virgo."

Adrian lay down next to her. "The Atlanteans could see these exact same constellations over four thousand years ago, give or take a few changes. Current theories say the ancient Sumerians came up with the original symbols about two thousand BCE…"

"And I'd bet anything that when the Atlanteans abandoned this island some ended up in that area of the world also and took their constellations with them. If they could space travel, they were most certainly watching the skies," Suzanne sighed. "And we know that they knew about the constellations. Those statues in the Zodiac Temple back that up." She rolled over onto her stomach and dragged her knapsack closer, pulling a file folder out of it. Suzanne flipped it open, revealing black and white and also color pictures of the inside of the temple. Adrian drifted to lean on his side and get a better view of the shots. "If we'd found, you know, maybe a single solitary statue of a ram or a scorpion it wouldn't be as suspicious, but twelve of them? All in a circle, in the same order as it is on the calendar today? I wish I'd have told those jerks today about this, it would have been stronger evidence that if anything they'd traveled to the Eurasian mainland, but noooooo, I had to go off ranting on and on about space travel." Her head dropped forward, banging into the dirt over and over. Adrian reached over and placed his palm under her forehead.

"Stop that. You're just going to give yourself a headache." Suzanne looked up at him, her forehead a smeary mess of dusty brown dirt.

"Already got a headache."

"Well, banging it against the ground isn't going to help. Now what else do you have in that folder?"

She gave him a suspicious look. "What makes you think I have anything else in here?"

Adrian leaned in close, whispering into her ear. "I know you, Suzanne. I know you get obsessive about things, and that when something catches your eye, you're not going to let go without a fight."

"All right, I'll give you that." She pulled out another photo, laying it on top of the pile. "Look at this photo of the statue of the archer, Sagittarius. Notice anything wrong with it?"

After a few moments, Adrian murmured, "There should be an arrow in there, shouldn't it? It doesn't make sense that he'd be drawing back a bow with nothing cocked in it."

"Bingo. Well, loser with no time that I am, I attempted to figure out that if that arrow was fired, so to speak, where could it lead to." Adrian shot her a skeptical look. "It's metaphorical."

"It couldn't just be pointing in the direction of the sunrise?"

"After nearly a year and a half on this rock, have you not come to see that things are rarely that simple?"

"Good point."

Suzanne pulled a scribbled-up map and placed that on top next. "Okay, look here," she said, the finger acting as a pointer shaking just slightly, and she took a drag from the clove to steady herself. "At first, it looks like it's just heading in a northeasterly direction that eventually ends up somewhere in the Norwegian Sea about to smack right into the Arctic. But…" she pulled out a sheet of marked up clear plastic, the kind used in an overhead projector, and placed it over the map, "…if you get a little more precise with your calculations, you find that the straight line traced directly from the notch on the bow leads you through the northern bit of Scotland and cuts right through the Orkney Islands."

Adrian sat up a little straighter, staring at the map in surprise. "Scotland? Everything else we've seen so far ends them up in the Hellenic and Middle Eastern areas of the world."

"Which is what makes this so drastic, I know," Suzanne nodded in agreement. "It gets better though." Another paper came out of the pile. "I looked up what that line crossed through specifically on those areas of land. Nothing of much significance was in Scotland, but it got really interesting once I hit the islands." She flipped over the paper, revealing a glossy color picture of four standing stones, tall and skinny and gleaming in the sunlight captured on the print. "These are called the Stones of Stenness. There's only four major stones left now (and don't be fooled by this picture, these stones are a good twenty feet tall in real life), but the post holes on the ground indicate that during its heyday, there were twelve large stones on the site."

"The same number as the zodiac signs."

"Yeah. That's not the only thing though. Within the last year archeologists have been examining the top of the stones in greater detail, and they've discovered some carvings there. They're just small holes drilled into the stones, but they're in very precise positions." The next paper in the pile had the detailed pictures of the top of the stones with ink linking the holes together as if it were a game of connect-the-dots.

"Oh bloody hell," Adrian breathed. "Capricorn… Aquarius… Aries… Taurus… They've got the constellations carved into the stones. The exact same ones that are carved into the bases of each corresponding statue in the Zodiac Temple."

"That's what it looks like to me, and to the archeologists there as well. The stones are said to have been erected around 3000 BCE as well, one of the oldest examples of standing stones on the planet—"

"And existing at the same time as Atlantis did. Even if they hadn't perfected their space travel at that time, I'm sure they could have gotten to Scotland and back fairly easily. And they definitely would have had the technology to put up those stones and make them stick for 5000 years." Adrian laughed incredulously. "This is amazing. I don't know how in all the hells you came up with this, but good Lord…"

"I've started to scare myself," Suzanne agreed. "If this is true, we've just changed the perception of human history up to this point irrevocably."

"This, along with them pulling an E.T., and everything else…" Adrian flopped onto his back, waving his clove in the air and watching the smoke drift around in lacy patterns.

"It's amazing." Suzanne closed the folder, shoved it back in her bag, and lay down once more.

"So what are you going to now? You're not going to bring this up to the sponsors, are you?" Adrian asked, a worried note in his voice.

"God no. I think…I'm going to make a pilgrimage to Stenness. Check out the area, really get up close and personal with those stones, and examine the skies around there. I've got some vacation days coming up, and I'm sure after today's performance they'd be more than happy to give me some time to prevent me from cracking up." Suzanne looked over at Adrian, a gleam in her eye that was enhanced by the fluorescent lights around the excavation site back down the hill. "Wanna come along?"

Adrian grinned back. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

* * *

_to be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

Here's part two, in which things get a little different and we finally see some familiar faces from Galactica. Read and enjoy!

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The Thirteenth Sign

By Lola Ravenhill

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**Part Two: '"But when worlds collide," said George Pal to his bride, "I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills…"'

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**

There was another flash of light.

When they blinked away the blindness, Lee was more than a little unnerved to see that his father, the president, and Billy had gone, leaving he and Starbuck in the middle of a field that looked drastically different than it had a moment ago.

"What the frak was that?" Kara muttered, clutching her gun tighter and hauling it up to attention again.

"No idea," he replied, turning in a slow circle to take in what changes had occurred. Instead of the overgrown grass it was now neatly shorn, a soft carpet under their feet. It was still night, but now the glittering stars seemed farther away, mere pinpricks in the sky rather than the beacons of before. The biggest changes were in the stones. The jewels had gone, and the remaining stones—where there had been twelve there now only looked like four—were slightly crumbling and weathered with age. They were still as imposing as before. Maybe even more, these stones spoke of having lasted for centuries and were not intimidated by the thought of standing watch for a few more. "I don't think we're on Kobol anymore," Lee breathed.

"You think?" she fired back, a slight nervous edge in her voice. Kara squinted up at the stars, biting her lip in concentration. "Look, there's Cancer, and over there Aquarius. And I think that's Gemini that way." She sighed, and lowered the gun slightly. "I think we're still on Earth."

Lee turned his eyes towards the stones, taking a few hesitant steps closer. "Yeah. Look at the top of the stones, you can still see the impressions of the constellations there. The jewels look long gone though."

"Lee…" she trailed off, at a rare total loss for words.

There was a crisp breeze coming from somewhere, a novel feeling for those stuck on a Battlestar for so long. There was no time to enjoy any such simple pleasures while on Kobol. The breeze carried the scent of the sea with it, of salt and fish and something entirely foreign to their noses. Maybe it was something distinctly Earthly. Lee breathed in deeply, feeling the air fill his lungs. At first he had thought that they were in some sort of holographic representation of Earth, gods only knew what sort of technology the Lords of Kobol had come up with in their day. Now, however, he was suspecting that it was something far beyond what he had previously thought. He walked over to the stones slowly and laid a palm on it. He let out an incredulous and breathy laugh. "They're still warm."

Kara followed him over, and when she came up to his side he grabbed her hand and pressed it flat against the stone. "It's still warm, as if it's been soaking up the sun all day," he whispered.

"Where the frak are we?" Kara muttered, looking over at Lee. There was a tinge of worry in her eyes, something he rarely saw there. A smile then suddenly spread across her face. "Maybe this is what Earth really looks like, rather than just the map's representation."

"Maybe." He looked around the remains of the circle, finally spotting something a short distance away. "Maybe we could ask them."

A little bit beyond the stones, further inland, was a tent set up on the grassy plain. There was a small fire in front of it, giving some more light to the scene. Most importantly though were the three people around it. A fair haired man sat opposite a blonde woman, and both were staring at their other companion: a black-haired woman who kept placing papers on the ground and holding them down with loose rocks. All three were dressed in what looked like appropriate outdoor gear, warm fleeces and sturdy hiking boots.

Kara shot Lee a look, and in one fluid motion they tucked their weapons under their arms and started to make their way over to the trio. However they didn't get far, as they slammed into some sort of barrier right in front of them. "Oww." Kara rubbed at her nose as Lee stretched out a hand and felt it.

"It almost feels like foam or something."

"Except for that we wouldn't know it was there until we smacked face first into it." She winced again and prodded at her nose.

"I can't think of any technology on any of the Colonies that could come up with a force field this undetectable. Maybe Earth's got better capabilities than we do," Lee said.

"Maybe it's the magic of the Gods," Kara grinned. "After all, if one little arrow could send us all this way, who only knows what else they could do." The grin got wider. "It's amazing, the force behind that arrow of Apollo."

"Funny, real funny."

"All right!" A voice suddenly clearly carried across to them. The two looked over to see the black-haired woman standing up, her arms spread wide. "I think I've got it." She spoke with a strange accent, although Kara could hear some similarities to the Aerilon accent in the way she talked.

The blonde woman stood up and walked over to her. "This better be worth it, Suze. I could be sleeping in a warm bed right now rather than an open field in the middle of an island too close to the Arctic Circle for my comfort."

"I promise you, McKinney, this will be so absolutely worth it."

"Think we should get comfortable and enjoy the show?" Kara murmured.

"Sounds like a very good idea." The two sat down on the ground, Lee idly wishing he had some snacks. "Do you think they can hear us?" he asked.

"Probably not. It's quiet out here, they would have definitely heard us smack into the force field." Kara stared around, glancing up at the stones, then coming back to the dark haired woman—Suze, she recalled—tying a bandanna around her head to keep her hair back.

"Okay, class," Suze hollered with a grin. "Sit down and get comfortable." Her two companions shared an amused look and complied with her directions. The man in particular propped himself up against a backpack and clutched a decidedly alcoholic looking bottle.

"My kingdom for some ambrosia," he heard Kara mutter.

"Thank you," Suze continued. "Now, McKinney, Ade, may I present to you, to paraphrase a very famous man, The History of the Earth. Part One."

"Oh, Lord," the man Ade said in an accent surprisingly similar to Dr. Baltar's, swiftly uncapping the bottle and taking a swig. Lee didn't notice this immediately as he was too busy trying to scoop up his gun again from where he'd dropped it in surprise.

"The history of the Earth?" he said, turning to Kara wide-eyed.

"Why does that seem a little _too _coincidental for me?"

"Well I don't like it. Let's just try and find a way out of this crazy place." He started to stand up, but Kara's hand shot out like a snake and grabbed onto his jacket.

"Maybe that's why we're still here. Because we're the ones who have to hear the story of the place we're going to end up eventually," Kara said, her eyes trained on the trio.

"That's…frankly, that seems like a load of b.s.," Lee said, but he sat back down again next to her.

Kara shrugged. "Who knows. Can't explain it, really. Call it a gut feeling."

"Woman's intuition?" She shrugged again.

"So," Suze's voice echoed over the field. "Let's start all the way at the beginning. Big Bang, universe expands, giant lava pit becomes Earth as we know it."

"That's quite succinct. I think you skipped a few steps in there though," Ade pointed out, and Suze threw a handful of grass at him. He just laughed and took another swig from the bottle.

"It's not the important part of the story, anyway. I'll move on to where things get juicy—the Humans."

"The true stars of the show," McKinney chimed in.

"Exactly. Now, the absolute earliest humans, Homo Habilis, popped up slightly over 2 million years ago. From there we move on through the different species and subspecies, Homo Erectus, the Neanderthal man, etcetera. Finally, however, about 200,000 years ago we get humans as we know them today—Homo Sapiens."

"The wise man," Ade said.

"Yeah. Our own species."

"That's impossible," Kara whispered. "Man only arrived on Earth 2,000 years ago from Kobol."

"That's not what the Earthlings think, apparently," Lee said. "Come on, tell us more about this little planet," he muttered.

"And now we take another jump forward in time. About, say, 12,000 years ago we start to see the development of agriculture. And as everyone has been taught in history classes, when people start to farm, they settle down, and cities rise." Suze moved over to look down at another piece of paper. "Around 5500 years ago, 3500 B.C.E., we start to see the first civilizations rise in the Mesopotamian area. Egypt followed quickly after, along with the Indus Valley civilizations. They came up with sciences, languages, art, religions. When the Cretan and Greek civilizations arose, these were amplified even further. We still talk about their legends, Theseus and the Minotaur, the labyrinth, the voyage home of Odysseus. We're still reading Homer, retelling the stories of the gods Zeus and Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, Apollo and Artemis, and my personal favorite Dionysus."

"That hasn't changed since college," McKinney said. "Always about the blood, sex, and booze."

"Oh, bite me. Anyway, Crete fell to the Myceneans, Greece rose to prominence then their entire culture was appropriated by the Romans, who got whipped by the Goths, leading into the Dark Ages and a massive step backwards scientifically, artistically, religion…ally…okay, everything went backwards until we come to the Renaissance in 1300 which finally pulls them out of the miserable pit of the Middle ages…fast forward to today."

"Suzanne?"

"Yes?"

"That has to be one of the more impressive run-on sentences I've ever heard," Ade smirked.

"Yes, you could almost forget that we also studied English Lit in college," McKinney said with a similar grin.

"Can I please get back to the story!" Suze growled.

"Yes ma'am," they chimed in unison.

"Thank you. Now, in the context of this story, the run-on sentence isn't the important stuff. That's all been established and proven tons of times. We need to go back in time oh, say, at least 4000 years ago to get to the stuff that could change what we already know."

"Back to Atlantis," Ade said with a knowing look in his eyes. Suze nodded, and bent down to take the bottle of alcohol from him, taking a long swig.

"Back to Atlantis," she echoed, "That mythical continent that up until two years ago remained the domain of classical writers and new age crackpots. We don't know when the continent was first inhabited, and we don't know what disaster eventually occurred to sink the place in its entirety into the ocean, but we know that it can be physically dated to 3800 years ago at the very latest."

"So most likely it was sometime around then that the Atlanteans were killed," McKinney said. Suze and Ade traded a look.

"Or pulled their E.T. move," Suze said.

"Either way, it seems safe to say that by 1500 B.C.E. that what was once known as Atlantis didn't exist anymore," McKinney nodded.

"Exactly. But from what we've found on the island, traces of their civilization exist to this day." She scuttled around and picked up another paper. "We know from the cuneiforms on the Zodiac Temple that they knew about Delphi in Greece."

"It was pretty specific to the place as well, if I remember what the translators said correctly," Ade said, standing up and coming to look at the paper over Suze's shoulder. "A place of prophecy, with the Pythian Sybil sitting over a crack in the ground emitting hallucinogenic fumes, and all dedicated to the god Apollo? It can only be one place."

Lee steadfastly ignored the insane grin Kara was sending his way.

McKinney got up and started pacing. "Okay, what else did the Atlanteans do? I've been trapped running PR for the past couple of months, I've missed out on all of the real fun discoveries."

"I think you know the basics already. They had an advanced alphabet, worshipped Gods and Goddesses quite similar to the ones the Greeks did, knew their astronomy frighteningly well, were very technologically advanced—maybe even more than we are now, but there's no evidence left aside from the writing on the wall, literally." Suze shrugged. "There's so much more out there that we don't know about them. We know about festival dates and rituals to appease the gods, but we haven't found anything that talks about their daily lives. We've not found any ruins of homes of the average people; we've only found the ruins of what seems like the major religious and cultural centers."

"Don't forget the most important part," Ade said softly.

"Right. It also looks like that 4000 years before we were able to make even the short hop to the moon, the Atlanteans had the capabilities of massive long distance space travel."

"I knew that," McKinney said, joining the other two. The bottle was passed around once more.

"If the writing on the wall was correct, a portion of the Atlanteans were headed for what they believed was heaven—_Kobol_, in their tongue. From what the translators are saying, this _Kobol_ wasn't like the Judeo-Christian idea of heaven, a place to go after death, but a real, physical place in the stars."

Lee felt Kara jolt in her seat next to him. Their legs were touching, and he reached out to place a calming hand on her knee.

"Another planet."

"Yup. And you can only guess how the investors took that."

"What did they call you this time?"

Ade snorted. "Dragged out the Monty Python quotes this time."

"Better than being called a stupid cunt," Suze smirked. "Ooh, I've got some more stuff stashed in the tent. Let's get all of these papers gathered up and I'll show you what else I've got."

"But you just set all of them up!" Ade said, staring incredulously as she began to scurry around.

McKinney just patted his back. "She's been like this as long as I've known her. You get used to it." Within a couple of quick minutes the three adjourned to their tent, leaving a bewildered Lee and Kara behind.

"Okay…" Kara trailed off. "So, if I heard them right, in some backwards sort of Earth-type way, they're saying that people went from Earth to Kobol, rather than the other way around."

"We don't know though that the _Kobol_ they're referring to is the same one as our Kobol. What are the chances that the planet the Earthlings took off for all those years ago is the same one as the one we're on right now?" He sighed and dropped his head into his hands. "Something's telling me it's a strong chance," he muttered.

"If anyone finds out about this, it'll either be dismissed as a load of total crap…or it'll shake the fleet to its core," Kara said, twirling a piece of grass in her fingers.

Lee got to his feet, eyes darting to the unfamiliar Earth sky once more. Their moon was starting to rise in the sky, a glowing white half circle. "First we need to get back to Kobol—our Kobol," he said, helping Kara to her feet.

"Let's just hope the Gods created a way out of this contraption and didn't leave it a one way map," Kara said, dusting off the seat of her flight suit. Lee nodded in wholehearted agreement.

* * *

It was the strange shimmery feeling that skated across her skin that roused Kara awake. She sighed deeply when she opened her eyes—they were still stuck in the circle. The two of them had scoured every bit they could reach inside the force field to find a way out, but to no avail. They were trapped in there until, as Kara began to think, the Gods decided it was time for them to leave. Eventually they'd fallen asleep propped up against one of the stones, with Lee's arm wrapped around her shoulders and her head drooping on his chest.

She looked around the remains of the circle again, sitting up a bit straighter when she saw that Suze was walking around a short distance away—almost tracing out where the rest of the stones would have been, Kara thought. She stood up, shrugging Lee's arm to the side, and walked to the center, close enough to hear the words she was muttering.

"So Libra would have been here…" A few more steps along… "then Scorpio." Suze bent down, tracing her fingers around the edge of an indentation in the ground. "Placing Sagittarius right here." Kara watched her as she looked up at the next physical stone in the circle. "Making that Aquarius," she pointed at the stone, then jumped to her feet. She placed her finger tips on the stone after Aquarius's. "Capricorn." She then walked out to the center of the larger gap between the stones (and held her breath, Lee was still sleeping propped up against the next stone in the pattern). "And ending with Pisces right here."

Kara's breath caught again when Suze began walking out towards the center of the circle, stopping only a couple of feet to the left of her. Close enough to touch, really. She heard Suze sigh, saw her chest heave up and down with the force of it. "But where's the space for the thirteenth sign?" she said.

"What thirteenth sign?" Kara couldn't help but ask. Thankfully it didn't seem that Suze had heard her. It was a bit of a surprise though. They had twelve their twelve colonies with corresponding signs, but the only thirteenth colony she could have thought of was…

"Come on girl, think. We know the ancients knew about Ophiuchus. It was included in their solar zodiac; it was my modern people that forgot about it." Kara began to think that one of Suze's ways of figuring things out was to talk about it, even if there was no one there to listen. "The serpent-bearer, Ophiuchus. Serpent…" Suddenly she burst out into giggles. "That good old serpent, keeps rearing its head." She collapsed to the ground, her dark hair slipping out of the bandanna and falling around her face as the laugh got louder. "We're on it!" she choked out between giggles, patting the grass beneath her hands. "Ophiuchus is represented by the Earth!"

A shiver raced down Kara's back at hearing her own words echoed back to her in such a strange fashion. It made sense though that Earth had its own sign, one that was forgotten in the many years from when they departed from Kobol (or the opposite order, she mentally conceded). And even stranger, the ideas of the importance of snakes were echoed in some of the things every Colonial kid had read at one time or another. "I think I read something similar in the Pythian Prophecies," she murmured.

"That's impossible, the Pythias at Delphi never left any written record of their prophecies, at least nothing we've found," Suze replied. All of a sudden her face froze, her eyebrows scrunched, and she looked up, her eyes locking onto Kara's. "Who are you?" she asked in a matter-of-fact voice. "And how did you get out here?"

"I'm Kara Thrace." The true surrealness of the situation made her a bit more willing to share information with the Earthling, for some reason. And if it was really a dream, it couldn't hurt. "As for the how I got here…well, that's a whole different story."

"Suzanne Ludwig," she introduced herself. "You a ghost? You look a bit translucent." Kara looked down at her hands, noting they looked a bit pale, but definitely not see-through. Suze clutched convulsively at a pocket and pulled out a packet of reddish-brown cigarettes.

"D'you mind if I…?" Kara reached out a hand to the pack. Suze stood up and held it out, watching as Kara's only slightly paler than normal hand quite easily pulled one from the pack. Suze tossed the lighter to her after she lit her own. Kara inhaled with unholy pleasure. "Oh, it's been far too long."

"You know, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen a ghost steal one of my cloves," Suzanne said pensively.

"That's because I'm not a ghost."

"Then what are you?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me. Like I've said, I've seen many a strange thing. The least of which is a semi-ghost enjoying one of my smokes," Suzanne arched a black eyebrow at Kara, who just grinned.

"You asked for it. What if I told you I come from a planet a long ways away called Caprica? And what if I said this planet and most of my people were destroyed by beings we created, leaving only a small handful of us to search through the galaxy for a new home. Legend has it the planet we're looking for is called Earth." Kara watched Suzanne's impassive face with a slight smirk on her lips. Ten to one she'd be called insane and dismissed outright. It's what she would have done a few months ago when they were back on Caprica and things were still normal.

"I'd say it sounds like a TV show I used to watch when I was a kid, frankly," Suzanne said. "However, you are most certainly on Earth, so I'll give you that."

"I'm still trying to figure out how we got here," Kara muttered. "Last I knew we were in a cave on Kobol. Now somehow we're stuck on Earth."

"Well, it's not a bad place to live," Suzanne mused. "I've grown quite used to it over the years," she winked. "It may not be all you expect it to be, especially if you arrive in a manner worthy of a summer blockbuster movie, but we rather like it."

Kara shrugged. "As long as people aren't trying to annihilate the crap out of us, it'll be fine with me." To her surprise, a worried look came over Suzanne's face.

"I'll give you a word of advice, Kara—tread carefully. We're not exactly used to otherworldly beings here; we've not managed to get humans past the moon yet. If you're not careful with how you approach, I've no doubt that a few 'well-meaning' governments will blast you out of the sky without hesitating."

"Thanks for the tip." Kara sighed again and looked up at the sky, gaze tracking from one end of the horizon to the other. "Although right now I'd give anything to get back to Kobol and get on with this mission."

"_Kobol_…paradise?"

"Not quite. It's where we, the Colonists and you Earthlings as a matter of fact, came from originally. They left a map there, looks kind of like what this would have looked like before all of the rocks fell down. Somehow though, we ended up here." Kara twisted her lips in a smirk. "Why do things like this always happen to me?" she said sarcastically.

"Hmm," Suzanne hummed, raising the clove to her lips. "Maybe they created the map there to correspond to this site, so that if they wanted to, they could find their way home." She cast a sidelong look at Starbuck. "How convinced are you that us Earthlings came from Kobol originally?"

"The scrolls of Pythia say that your tribe left Kobol at the same time the rest of ours did, about two thousand years ago. Twelve tribes headed for the colonies, and yours headed towards Earth."

Suzanne laughed, not the politest of laughs, and wandered a few steps away, an awkward dance in hiking boots and leggings. "I didn't ask what your scrolls said, I want to know what _you_ believe. Just because I'm a devoted Catholic," she held up the gold charm hanging from her neck—two small bars of metal intersecting, with the horizontal piece up towards the top of the vertical one, "doesn't mean I take every word the Bible says as literal gospel."

That was the crux of things, wasn't it? Kara didn't have a clue what being 'Catholic' meant, but she knew her own beliefs were a closely held secret, a small treasure to drag out and hold onto in times of great need. She knew others would be surprised to see the idols she kept in her locker, especially Lee, claiming that the Gods were a load of bunk and weren't going to get them out of their current mess. But she also knew that a little faith could go a long way, and they could use everything they could find right now. "I…I want to believe. I want to believe that everything I was taught is true. However, I think I'm open-minded enough to take whatever the Gods throw at me."

Suzanne grinned again, a true smile this time. "Now you really sound like a TV show I watched as an impressionable teenager. I'll tell you this about Earth: regardless of what your scriptures say, us Earthlings can trace our civilizations back through writings and other facts a good six thousand years, and far longer than that undocumented."

"You mentioned something like that in your little presentation before, didn't you?" Kara leaned against one of the smaller rocks in the center, propping her rifle up next to her.

"You saw that? I admit, I went a little overboard with the papers, but when things start to fall together I can't help myself. Unless it's in front of a lot of people," she winced. "Stage fright sucks. Anyway, yes I did mention it, because it's the truth, one of the rare things at least our multitudes of religions here and our science can agree on. At least that six thousand years number. Beyond that we get into murky territory that we can't agree on, but that's besides the point. The point I'm trying to make is, us Earthlings, all humans by nature, really, are an extremely stubborn breed. You come here and start telling that creation myth, they'll think you're crazy."

"Wouldn't the whole alien visitors thing do that anyway?"

"Hmm, true." The breeze picked up, dancing around Suze and Kara. Suze looked up at the sky thoughtfully. "_'Oh, star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light_.'" Suze sung in a low voice, wrapping her arms around herself.

"What does that mean?" She understood the words, but there was quite obviously a deeper meaning to the song than just the lyrics.

Suzanne smiled slightly. "The absurdity of singing Christmas songs in September."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. It's a...well, kind of an Earth thing, at least for some of us. Anyway, the song is about these three wise men who are following a star in the sky. The star is said to lead them to the birthplace of the savior of the world." She shrugged. "It's nothing, sometimes I sing when I'm thinking."

"It makes sense though. Every culture out there's got some sort of hero or savior that people are begging and pleading to save them." Kara thought back to what Lee had told her about how President Roslin was being looked at by some of the people following her views rather than the military arm of the fleet. Lee thought it was a load of shit, but beneath the sarcasm she could tell that she was being held up as the savior of the Prophecies—the one to lead them to Earth.

"People need heroes. Whether they're mighty or meek, we're always looking for someone to save us." Suzanne shrugged. "I guess what it comes down to is that no matter where we claim our origins, Kobol, Earth, Reticula, or wherever, underneath all of the trappings we're all human. And maybe that common point will save us on the end." She shook her head briskly, as if trying to shake something out of her hair. She turned to Kara and smiled. "Hey, if you ever do make it to Earth, Kara Thrace, be sure to look me up. I just might be the only one who believes you." She held out her hand for a shake, something that was apparently more universal than either woman had thought.

Kara smiled back. "Will do, Suzanne." She stuck out her hand and shook back, feeling palm press against palm. Something thin and papery was quickly slid beneath the cuff of her jacket, lodging beneath the elastic wristband.

And the world suddenly faded to black.

* * *

Kara's eyes snapped open to see the President's worried face standing over her. Her eyes darted around, seeing that they were back in the Tomb of Athena. "Are you all right, Lieutenant Thrace?" President Roslin asked, stretching a hand out to help her to her feet.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Kara said, rubbing her forehead once she was upright. A glance to the side showed Lee being helped to his feet by Commander Adama and Billy. He looked like she felt at that moment—as if they'd been beaten about the head by a bludgeon in the form of a theory.

"We couldn't find you there for a moment," Roslin said, watching Kara check to see if her gun was still in working order. "It took a minute after the hologram ended to find you and Captain Adama behind the statue of Sagittaron, both unconscious."

Kara shook her head. "I don't remember getting knocked out…" She remembered just about everything that had happened in the past few…minutes? Hours? Great. A head full of brand new ideas and a screwed up sense of time. Not what she'd expected to leave 'Earth' with.

However, she once read a book as a child, an old fantasy story that was probably nothing more than a pile of ash now, and it said in there that the true sign of having traveled to other worlds is by making the claim that no time at all had passed, even though years could have been spent in the other place. While they couldn't claim years they did have hours, the memory of the wind in their faces, the feel of the stones, and that smell of the sea. That was a little too detailed and realistic than the dreams she usually had (these days they were of what had been—Zak, Caprica, her father, and so many other things that no longer existed). She shrugged. "Must have just been disoriented when the program ended and tripped," she rationalized to Roslin.

The President had a wary look in her eye, but nodded anyway. "Must have been," she smiled slightly, and walked over to where Lee was blinking and rubbing at his own head. Kara exhaled, and felt the small piece of paper that had been pushed up into her jacket sleeve right before things went black. She slipped out the thick paper, palmed it, and stared at the writing on it.

"Dr. Suzanne Ludwig, Professor of Archaeology, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts," she murmured to herself. "Definitely not a dream." Kara looked up and managed to catch Lee's eyes. A slight shrug showed that she was just as confused by what had happened as he was. No matter what, they had a lot to think about. Earth was beginning to look like it could be a very strange place.

* * *

One part to go...


	3. Chapter 3

The Thirteenth Sign

By Lola Ravenhill

* * *

**Part Three: A Shared History?**

* * *

As President Roslin smiled at the crowd and took a small bow, the applause became even louder. From what it appeared to Kara's eyes the president had been welcomed back to the fleet with open arms. There had to be dissidents lurking out there somewhere though, and no doubt they would rear their heads up soon. Roslin bowed once more and then left the podium.

The crowd began to disperse in various directions, but Kara made a beeline for the President. There was a question she had to ask her. Her head had been filled with ideas since the experience on Earth (and it really was Earth, holographic, hallucinogenic, or otherwise) and there was something she had to ask the president before it got too late. She'd thought about asking Commander Adama, but she suspected the answer she could receive from him was probably not the one her gut was looking for. She would have posed it to Priestess Elosha, if she had still been alive.

"Madam President!" she called out, jogging up towards the President's entourage. President Roslin turned around, the look on her face inscrutable.

"Lieutenant Thrace. How can I help you?"

"Madam President, would it be possible for me to have a minute of your time?" She flicked her eyes at the people surrounding her, wondering how to suggest politely that they all leave so she could ask her question in private.

Thankfully, and showing the skill that had grown since she had stumbled into office, Roslin got the clue. "Of course." She waved towards a door leading to a storage closet. "We can talk privately in there." Roslin turned to the guards and others. "If you wouldn't mind waiting out here…"

"But Madam President—" one voice started, but Roslin cut it off at the knees.

"I'm fairly sure that Lieutenant Thrace isn't going to do me any harm. Just wait outside the door, and we'll be done in a few minutes." With that the two women walked into the small and overstuffed supply closet. "What did you want to ask me, Lieutenant?" Roslin said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"There's a few things that have been on my mind since coming back from Kobol," Kara said, leaning against a metal shelf.

"Ah," Roslin nodded with a knowing look.

"Yeah."

"Does this have something to do with why you and Captain Apollo seemed to have taken a minute longer than the rest of us to get back to the inside of the Tomb of Athena?" she asked.

Damn, she was good. "Sort of."

"What did you see in there?"

"I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about it." At least, not with anyone than Lee. She'd told him about what had happened after he'd fallen asleep. He hadn't believed her, until she showed him the smoke scented paper. That put a different spin on things. "But it's made me think. We're operating under the idea that the people on Earth, the descendants of the thirteenth Tribe, know all about Kobol and the Colonies and our history. What if they don't, though?"

"What exactly do you mean?" Roslin said, head tilting with the question.

Kara licked her lips. "What if the Earth people don't know anything about Kobol and the tribes? What if they've forgotten about them in the years since they left Kobol and have made up a totally different history for themselves? And if that is the case…what's going to happen when we finally do get there? If they don't have a clue about the Pythian prophecies and other stuff, why would they want to welcome us at all? They could see _us_ as the invaders and blast us out of the sky."

Roslin sighed and leaned against the shelf next to Kara. "It has crossed my mind, yes. I would like to think that our brothers and sisters on Earth would know all about our shared history, but that could just be wishful thinking. I wish I could tell you what I expect those on Earth to act like when we first encounter them, but I honestly have even less of an idea than you do right now."

"So what you're really saying is keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best," Kara said with a nod.

"To put it simply, yes," Roslin said. She pushed herself off the shelf and walked to the door. Her hand was on the latch, just about to open it, when she turned around to look at Kara again with a pensive smile. "For some reason, I have a feeling that when we get anywhere near Earth, you and Captain Apollo will be the first to know." With that she walked through the door and back out to the rest of civilization.

Roslin's exit saved Kara from coming up with a response to that last statement, something especially convenient when she was at an uncharacteristic loss for words. Even though no one else was around, she shrugged, and muttered "So say we all." Kara went through the door emerging back into the bustle of Galactica, whistling a song she had only heard once on a planet far away.

* * *

A/N: This is the end, but hopefully only for now. I would like to do a sequel or expand on this, however I've got absolutely no idea where to take the story (aside from revisiting the Earthlings and Suzanne's reaction to Kara—I'd love to do more with the Battlestar people though). Any ideas you guys who have given such wonderful feedback can offer up would be great. :)

Thanks to grayangle, Martin Mazur, F-302 Pilot, Batsojopo, Chaos Blade and xfool1 for their reviews.


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